Dirty
by TheLightIsMine
Summary: It sounded so ridiculous now, but it must have been because she was so...clean. She was always covered from head to boot in some sort of hydraulic fluid, lubricant or mechanical grease from her workshop. He hadn't recognised her. Fi/Parja humour fic.


_'Cause I love RepCom. And I can't get the darn plot bunnies out of my head. Not that any of my RepCom fics really have plot, but still. The bunnies give me ideas for plotless fluff. Which is why we love them. :) They are made of plotless fluff. I should shut up now and let you read this plotless fluff._

_Oh, this one might actually be funny plotless fluff. I hope._

_Enjoy. :)  
><em>

_~Light_

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><p><strong>Dirty<strong>

It had been all wrong.

Fi had wanted to turn around. Turn around, or maybe back out of the room apologising profusely for entering the wrong room. But he hadn't. He'd just said stupid things instead, not making any sense. Then he had taking his hasty departure out into the cold winter night of Mandalore, swearing under his breath and telling himself that _it must have been the wrong room_.

But it hadn't been the wrong room. He was just being a _di'kut_.

It was hardly fair. How was he supposed to know that she had planned on taking a shower that night? She should have prepared him. For what, exactly, he wasn't sure. He just wished that he hadn't reacted the way he had. Because now he had to wait out here in the cold until she was asleep, then creep back into the room and quietly get undressed and into bed without waking her up. Which was not going to be easy.

He grunted to himself, rubbing his arms to warm them up, shifting from foot to foot in the snow. It wasn't _his _fault he had acted so oddly; _Kal'buir _was bringing in so many 'new additions' to their _aliit _that he had quite honestly thought that he had walked into the wrong room, unaware that it was now inhabited by an unknown occupant. His memory wasn't what it used to be, after the accident, so that might explain _why_...

He sighed, his breath steaming in front of him in the moonlight. Parja would have _told _him if they had moved rooms, and _Kal'buir _would have _told_ him if there was going to be a new arrival at Kyrimorut. Kriffing hell, he _knew _all too well it was _their _room. He was just making excuses for his painfully embarrassing behaviour in front of Parja.

He started to pace, keeping his muscles from freezing up. He considered going back inside now, at least to get some more of the nerf steak that was on the table. But Parja wouldn't be asleep yet, so she'd hear him come back in. It was truly ridiculous, the whole thing, really. But he couldn't face her laughing at him yet, even if she didn't mean it hurtfully. Maybe she might have forgotten in the morning...

He had walked into their room and seen Parja wearing a towel wrapped around her, using another towel to dry her hair. She had smiled at him as he entered, but he had immediately thought he was in the wrong room. So he had, for want of a better expression, legged it.

Why? It sounded so ridiculous now, but it must have been because she was so..._clean_. He hadn't recognised her. Absurd, now he thought about it, but thoughts went so fast that by the time you pondered them you were stuck wondering why exactly you did such things. The only simple answer was that she had been clean. And he wasn't used to that.

He thought back to when he had first met her. He couldn't walk, talk beyond mumbling vague syllables, read, write or even eat without help. But he could see, and he could think. And he remembered thinking that she was pretty. Not a dazzling beauty like Besany, but pretty in a simple, healthy way. And _strong_. And she never gave up, either. She had never given up on him. But the one image that stuck in his head the most from those early days on Mandalore was that whenever he saw her, she was always covered from head to boot in some sort of hydraulic fluid, lubricant or mechanical grease from her workshop. It was even in her hair sometimes, though _Manda _knew how it got _there_. There were always smudges on her face, arms, on her clothes, under her fingernails sometimes...after a while, it was how he knew her. Dirty, greasy, a little wet sometimes, but cheerful. It was _Parja_.

Of course he'd seen her clean before. Just not _that_ clean. Never fresh out of the 'fresher. It had only been last week that they had started sharing a room, and he had been nervous enough without considering the implications of room-sharing, and by extension _bed_-sharing. He still wasn't sure quite what Parja saw in him. He was far from the man he used to be.

_But_, he reminded himself, _Parja never knew you before this_. _She loves you as you are, has done from the start, so stop trying to make a mess of things. _As Parja always said, only fix it if it's broke.

So she had been clean. Still wet from the shower, even. What was so disconcerting about that? Whatever it was, it had been enough to make him double – no - _triple_ take, then stammer some sort of apology in what he _thought _was Basic, then slam the door embarrassedly on Parja's questioning face.

He held his head in his hands. _She must think I'm a complete di'kut. _He really was too cold now, and decided to risk the humiliation of explaining his unclear motives to his girlfriend and go and get some of that steak. Wiping his boots, he wandered back inside, but the steak was all gone, probably due to the arrival of two Nulls and _Kal'buir _earlier that day. The appetites of the Nulls rivalled even his and his _vode_, but that was probably due to them being more 'tinkered with' than he was. He missed his brothers. He wanted to know what they were doing, how Corr was doing as his replacement, just _talk _to them. But he couldn't. He didn't even know what he would say. Sighing, he realised he had to face his fate. There was no food, and only one other option. He made his way down the corridor that led to his shared room with Parja.

The light was off, but he couldn't be sure if she was asleep. She was generally a quiet sleeper, unless she fell asleep on her face, in which case she would start to snore in an admittedly cute but annoying way that usually made him roll her over. There was no snoring, but that didn't mean she wasn't asleep. He eyed the corridor again. Maybe there was more steak in the larder...they always had a large stock in in winter, Rav said. He weighed his chances of sneaking away undetected. If she was awake, there was a chance she would hear him creeping down the corridor and call him, and then he couldn't just ignore her, that would be _rude_. But if she was _asleep_...

Fi turned, deciding to take his chances. He took three steps, then heard a noise at the other end of the corridor, turned quickly in surprise, tripped over his foot and fell hard on the floor with a loud _thud _and an "Oof!"

Silence. Fi's heart was beating in his ears, loud and fast. He scanned the corridor for the source of the sound, but could see nothing. He waited expectantly. He hoped Parja hadn't heard. He didn't want to have to explain himself to her when he barely knew _himself_ why he had acted so strangely.

His heart quietened. Fi breathed a sigh of relief.

"Fi?"

Her voice was muffled by the door, but there was no doubt about it. She had heard. The lights went on in the room.

He got up and debated making a run for it, when the door opened and a very clean – and now dry – looking Parja stood in the doorway, hands on hips, a bemused look on her face.

He didn't know what to do. So he just half-waved at her. "Hi."

"Was that you making that noise?"

"Uh...yes. I, uh, fell over."

"Fell over what?"

Now Fi was really embarrassed. He cleared his throat. "I tripped. Over my foot. I thought I heard something...it startled me, I fell. That's all." He suppressed the mad urge to add 'General' at the end of that sentence. Some part of his brain was remembering ARC Trooper Sull's befitting words, 'Old army habits die hard, I guess.' The other part was analysing Parja's reaction to what he had just said. She looked mildly amused, a little confused, but not angry. Which, his brain told him, was good.

"Were you coming to bed?" She asked him, smiling gently, her freshly-washed chestnut hair illuminated from behind by the lights in the bedroom, making it look shiny and soft. Fi's fingers twitched, wondering what it would feel like under his hands...

"Yes. I just didn't want to wake you." He heard himself say.

"Oh, I wasn't asleep. You should have just come in." She held out her hand. His sheepish feeling must have shown on his face. "Come on."

He took her extended hand, her _warm_ hand, and let her guide him into her – _their – _room, still feeling sheepish, and dreading what she might ask him about his unexplainable behaviour earlier.

She took his jacket off his shoulders, and he took off his boots and shirt off, before falling back into the pillows, suddenly tired. She climbed in next to him and turned off the light.

The first thing he noticed was that she smelled nice. Fruity and tropical, like the Keldabe fruit market in the spring when the sun wasn't too hot to make the fruit putrid, but just warm enough to bring out all the exotic scents. And her hair really _was_ as soft as he'd thought it would be. Her skin was that tiny bit softer, too. He wondered vaguely why he had noticed that, but her voice broke through his reveille.

"So...do you want to explain why you ran out on me looking like you had just seen a naked Hutt?"

He pondered this. "Aren't Hutts already naked?"

She gave him one of _those_ looks. It was pitch-black in the room, but he could feel it burning into his eye sockets. "You're avoiding my question."

He sighed. It was futile. Telling her made more sense than _not_ telling her, he supposed.

"I thought you were someone else." That hadn't come out quite right. She laughed a little.

"And who did you think I was, standing basically naked in our room?"

"No, not like that, I just..." He trailed off, frustrated with his inability to form the right words. Mij said that he was 89.2% of the man he used to be, but that was obviously only physically – his mind still felt clumsy and out of reach at times.

"Go on," Parja prompted him. "Why didn't you recognise me?"

He swallowed. "You were...clean."

She laughed.

He felt confused. Her reaction had thrown him; he had expected her to be annoyed or offended. Not many women would take kindly to being called unclean most of the time...

"I'm...I'm sorry..." He stammered, still unsure as to why she was still laughing. "It's just that you're always covered in some sort of dirt from your workshop, and it was just a surprise to see you..._not_ covered in dirt and, in all fairness, we've only been sharing a room for less than a week and I didn't expect to...I'm sorry!" He said again, her laughs still echoing in the quiet room.

"Don't be sorry, _cyar'ika_. _I'm _sorry that I confused you by being hygienic..." She giggled again, her body jerking against his as she laughed. "Next time I'll warn you before I decide to take a shower. Put up 'Danger' signs and everything." She began to laugh again, louder, as though she found this hysterically funny. He didn't see why it was funny at all, but laughing beat a cold shoulder and an uncomfortable night in another room, that was for sure. He shook his head in incomprehension. _Women._

She kissed him lightly on the cheek, sighing as her laughing eventually subsided. Soon he could feel the slowing of her heartbeat and her deep breathing, and knew she had fallen asleep. He held her warm body close, silently thankful that she was so understanding with him. She nuzzled his neck in her sleep, and he chuckled quietly to himself.

Slowly, he fell asleep, his nose buried in her sweet-smelling hair and a content smile on his face.

He decided he could get used to her being so clean.

**Finis**

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><p><em>aliit = clanfamily_

_Manda = spiritual concept in the Mandalorian religion_

_vode = brothers_

_cyar'ika = darling, loved one, sweetheart_

_di'kut = idiot_

_Kal'buir = father Kal; papa Kal (Kal being their adopted father)_

_Tell me what you thought. :) If you like RepCom fic, I think I've kinda taken it on as my new fandom, as this is my fourth RepCom fic to date. So if you want more RepCom, check out my profile. :) Thanks._

_Reviews, anybody? You think it was funny? Cute? Awful? Let me know what you thought, as a good-luck gift for me singing in a concert to 200 people tomorrow. I'm on first, as well... :) Thanks!_

_~TheLightIsMine_


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